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Diccon Harper
, Raven Wolf (Zaf) |family= }} Diccon Harper is the original bassist of DragonForce. He was previous member in the bands, "Voice of Destruction" and "Phoenix" and "Demoniac". In DragonForce, he played only on the 2003 release of Valley of the Damned. Musical Career Information Voice of Destruction and Phoenix In the mid-80s, Francois Breytenbach Blom and Paul André Blom had a garage band called "Moral Decay", messing around with punk and metal songs. At the same time, Diccon played in a metal band called "Phoenix". Greg started Voice of Destruction as a Punk/Hardcore band with 3 other guys. These bands all converged on the Punk/Metal hang-out, Arties, which had been established by Francois. Harper was already playing for Voice of Destruction whilst in Phoenix, which later broke up. As the original Voice of Destruction drummer departed, Paul was asked to join, since his project with Francois was also dissolving. The line-up as it was to become known came into being when Francois replaced the original vocalist in the early 90’s. All of the influences then evolved and solidified into a full-on metal sound, which combined, gave Voice of Destruction their signature sound. By 1996, V.O.D was touring Europe, and returned to South Africa for some shows in late 1998 and into 1999. Also, in an interview by someone named DarkFiend with Voice of Destruction stated a few points on Harper: :*''"Today, one can see Francois doing vocals for K.O.B.U.S, a band he started with Theo Crous of Springbok Nude Girls fame, and Paul is now playing bass in TERMINATRYX. Diccon remained in England and has since played in bands like Demoniac, Dragon Force, and is currently in PAGAN ALTAR. Greg pretty much stopped playing after ‘99. Looking in at scene from which he has been absent for some years, he noticed that the industry has not really progressed as much as one might have hoped. There wasn’t really a gap for Francois and Paul to observe, as they moved on continuously with the music scene in SA. The flow and changes are not as visible as when you’d been in isolation for a decade." :*"We’ll continue with our respective bands and other activities as usual. Some of us are keen to record V.O.D songs which never got laid down, and redo other gems which never got recorded properly. Others, however, feel it should be laid to rest now with the tour behind us. We’ll see what happens – there’s nothing stopping us from either calling it quits for good, or striking up a brand new V.O.D – anything is possible and we won’t make proclamations as we know how things can change. It’s also difficult with Diccon living in the UK."'' :*''"Diccon has since returned to the UK, Francois to K.O.B.U.S, Paul to Terminatryx, and Greg to his wilderness retreat. Our brief brush with the past now, once again, very firmly tucked away within the realm of memories. What happens now, you know as well as we do and as well as the band members do. But what about us? Has this encounter taught us anything about our roots as metalheads in South Africa? Take from it what you will, but know that we do have a rich history and heritage – those elements which are the foundations of any culture, be it “sub” or no – and may this serve as inspiration for all other metal bands in Africa to add to that heritage."'' Demoniac In Demoniac, while Lindsay Dawson had played bass on all the band's recordings, the decision was made to then hire a bass player to allow him extra freedom during live performance. So, Harper, then joined Demoniac. Before the end of the year (1999), however, Demoniac had come to an end. All members except Dawson (Totman, Li, and Setinc) formed DragonHeart, which later became known as DragonForce. Although he was in the band, Harper never was featured in any of Demoniac's albums. DragonForce Harper had joined DragonForce in November 2000 (replacing founding member Steve Williams) along with Vadim Igorevich Pruzhanov joining in 2001 to complete the line-up for recording their first album. However, Harper had left in 2002 but had played only in the band's Valley of the Damned 2003 release as a session player. External Links/References :*V-O-D A Post Reunion Tour Interview Category:Former Members Category:Members